THE GLORY OF RECONCILIATION IN CHRIST!

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THE CROSS IS FOOLISHNESS TO THOSE WHO ARE PERISHING

“The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Defeat and despair is what those at the cross saw the day Jesus was crucified. Some even shouted “Save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” To those who don’t have faith, or eyes to see, a naked, dying man on a cross doesn’t seem to be much of a victory does it?

While the world clamors for wealth, strength, intelligence and power over their enemies, God calls us to see our weakness. You see the fall of man centers around the lie of independence. The root of humanity’s problem is we think we’re in charge of something. If there’s something we don’t like or want to hear we’ll simply shut it down whether it’s by ignoring it or putting it to death. In this case we, meaning all of us represented at the cross that day, thought we would kill God off. Maybe if we get rid of this Jesus we’ll be able to go about our way and live life the way we want to live it. Sometimes the truth is difficult to take isn’t it? If we could only hide our heads in the sand maybe the truth will go away, maybe we won’t be responsible.

You see God is Spirit, therefore He is invisible to the natural eye. So, when one looks upon a man dying on a cross what’s really happening may not be as it appears. Jesus was “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit…” (1 Peter 3:18). We too must learn to look at the unseen rather than being fooled by the seen. The Apostle Paul told us to “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

The Apostle Paul revealed the truth about real power and weakness in 2 Corinthians 12 after he implored God three times to remove something he saw as negative in his life. God’s response to him was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is perfected in weakness.” In other words, what appears to be strength in the seen really isn’t. This is why Jesus told us we must come as a little child and how He, himself, was meek and lowly. What appears to be weak to the watching world is really where God’s strength lies.

Although I have never really attended twelve-step meetings I have to agree with the first step wholeheartedly. The first step tells us we have to admit we have the problem and we are powerless over it. So whether it’s drugs, gambling, shopping, sex or eating too much chocolate cake the first step is admitting powerlessness. Weakness carried out to it’s fullest extent is death wouldn’t you agree? Now we’re starting to get somewhere. 2 Corinthians 13:4 says, “For indeed He was crucified because, or through, weakness, yet He lives because of the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, yet we will live with Him because of the power of God…”

Let me give you an example in the natural to help explain the idea of weakness or powerlessness. Scientists have deemed 459 degrees below zero to be what is called “Absolute Zero.” At that temperature absolutely nothing moves. While nothing actually moves there is something in the unseen that will move even better at this temperature and that’s electricity. They say absolute zero is the best temperature to conduct electricity because there is no resistance. Similar to electricity, God’s Spirit moves better through people who have stopped resisting. When I say resisting I mean living under the delusion that we, in and of ourselves, can care for ourselves without God. In other words those still believing the lie of independence inherited from the fall.

You see if the truth is told mere weakness isn’t enough because we might still have a bit of movement left. This is why the cross is necessary. According to God’s perspective we don’t need a little bit of help we actually need Him to do all. The great revelation God showed us through the Apostle Paul was how the solution is for us to be co-crucified with Christ. When someone is dead there is absolutely no movement, or resistance. Weakness is one thing, but dead is something else! So we are told to “reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Once we start to see ourselves as having died and raised back in Him, we will discover the secret of the Christian life which is “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” The life of Christ will then find no resistance and He will finally be able to move freely through us to others.

Thanks Kenneth and you’re right. Resistance is really just us attempting to live as if we are independent and we both know that can’t work.
It’s really a life of delusion filled with torment, anger, lust, jealousy, envy and so on which is only fitting because we were never meant to live that way. It is only when Christ comes to live in His temple, which is us, that we are made whole and the fires of resistance are extinguished.